Trust No One
by Kitkatlaugh
Summary: Samantha Costello's mother and father are dead. She is the CEO to her family business and she lives with her over-protective uncle. When she meets Oliver, however, he shows her that things aren't always what they seem. What really happened to her parents, and what is the connection between Sam and the vertigo drug?
1. Chapter 1

C1

Dark clouds covered the morning sky of Starling City. The wind rustled through the now bare trees, and winter seemed to strangle any warmth there may have been. Samantha's eyes fluttered open and she sighed with satisfaction. Today was a Saturday. There was no need to frantically rush around her castle of a house, only to be welcomed by another chaotic environment at work. Sam worked as the CEO in her family's business, O.C. Pharmaceuticals. The business had been her uncle's and her mother's, passed on to Sam when the latter suffered from a fatal cardiac arrest.

Even though it was Saturday, Samantha wasn't completely free from work. She still had to plan, look over files, and even meet with a few stuck-up businessmen who were interested in her company. However, being the procrastinator that she was, Sam groggily sat up, glanced at her clock, saw that it was already 11:00 am, and decided that she would have to move her work to tomorrow, because today was going to be her lazy day.

Her legs swung over the bed and landed firmly on the floor before the young woman lazily dragged herself over to her closet and threw on a pair of black skinny-jeans and a fuzzy purple sweater that may have been just a few sizes too big for a petite 5'2 girl like Sam. She tore a brush through her frizzy brown hair, and didn't even bother with any makeup as she grabbed her phone and headed down the marble staircase of her family's mansion.

She entered the kitchen, grabbed one of her favourite blueberry muffins, and crept toward the front door. She made sure that she stayed quiet, walking with the toe-to-heel technique that she had taught herself at a young age. Sam had always been one to creep around. Although she was quite a goody-two-shoes, she would have to find her own space every once and a while, and that wasn't something her mother had been very keen on letting her do. Because of her billionaire family, Sam normally wouldn't have even been able to walk out her own front door without cameras flashing. Her father had died when she was young, so her mother had raised her in a very strict and protective manner.

When her mother had died, she moved in with her uncle, her father's brother and mother's co-worker. Sam had thought that this move would allow her a bit more freedom, but the effect seemed to be just the opposite. Now, she was rarely allowed to even leave the house without a bodyguard (her uncle was far too busy to deal with such childish affairs). Since she and her family were so powerful, they were considered a threat by many other businesses. This caused many rivalries and sometimes even violence targeted at the family. Sam's uncle was only trying to protect her, but it still seemed a bit unreasonable.

Suddenly, her uncle's voice rang through the hall. "Samantha, you know you aren't allowed to go out without permission. Why didn't you ask?"

"I just wanted to step outside for a bit. I didn't plan on going anywhere anytime soon."

Of course this was only her excuse for not asking first. If she hadn't been caught, she would have gone a decent distance away, probably into the city.

"I wouldn't be worried if you didn't have a habit of 'getting lost' so frequently," he replied, making sure to emphasize his sarcasm with finger quotations.

"Uncle, I'm twenty-five years old, I think I can take care of myself!"

"Sweetie, don't think I don't believe you, I just want you to have some extra protection while your out. You never know what could happen." At that moment he gestured for the bodyguard stationed near him to come closer. "Why don't you take Leonardo with you?" he suggested, even though it was more of an order than a suggestion. Sam only groaned with annoyance as her uncle walked back into his study.

Still, the young woman wouldn't let her uncle spoil her time alone. The only problem to deal with here was Leonardo. Sure, he was a nice guy, but she really didn't have time to have him tagging along at the moment.

"Hey, Leo," she started. "I'm gonna go fetch my wallet, be right back.

Funny thing, Sam really had forgotten her wallet, but she couldn't have cared less. When she got into her room, she grabbed a twenty like she would have any other day, but instead of heading back downstairs to leave with Leonardo, she opened one of her bedroom windows and silently slid out into the tree that stood there. She shut her window again and effortlessly climbed down the tree, creeping over to her Harley that stood in the driveway. Sam mounted the bike and started the engine, feeling the vehicle roar to life beneath her. She took off down the long and twisted driveway, letting the wind tangle her hair. The adrenaline pumped through the girl as she made her way onto the road.

This was what it felt like to live.


	2. Chapter 2

C2

Sam parked her bike just outside the city park, a cute little place with interesting people and good climbing trees. She took a book out of the bag that she had strapped to her bike. Sam loved her books. They were her escapes into different worlds with different problems. Reading was like living another life to Sam. She often wondered what it would be like if she was in a book, a life filled with mystery and danger and adventure. The book she now held was her Sherlock Holmes anthology, one of her absolute favourite books. The spine was worn from the many times it had been opened and the pages smelled of old books.

Sam made her way up a near tree, finding a nice little nook to sit in. It was beautiful up here, the air tasted like winter and the branches of the tree felt hard and cold. To anyone else, today was a chilly and dead winter day, but Sam saw the beauty to it.

She opened the book midway through, trying to find a good story for the moment. There it was, The Hounds Of Baskerville. Arthur Conan Doyle had been a genius, and this story was just perfect for the day. Within a few minutes, Sam was nose deep in the world of the consulting detective and his partner. She read from story to story, never tiring and not breaking for more than five minutes at a time.

It had only seemed like about an hour when Sam noticed that it was starting to get dark. She checked her phone for the time and nearly fell out of the tree laughing. It was 7:00 pm! She had been out reading for nearly eight hours! It was hard to believe that that was even possible, and Sam knew that she would be in some deep trouble when she got home. Her uncle was probably worried sick, and Leo… She wondered how long he had waited for her before he had realised that she was long gone.

Sam slipped down the tree and headed back toward her bike with her book. The cold air bit at her hands and she shivered, finally able to comprehend how cold it was. She carefully placed her book back in its bag and was about to jump back onto her bike when a shot fired through the air. She leapt back instinctively and ducked behind the nearest car. Another shot fired, this one hitting her bike tyre.

"Shit," Sam muttered. This could mean many things, but having experience in this area, she knew that it surely meant trouble. A third shot rang out through the night, shattering a window of the car that Sam was hiding behind.

"Costello, we know you're there!" a thick Russian woman's voice followed the shot. Double shit, this wasn't good. Sam's family had never gotten along quite too well with the Russian mob, and this lead to many problems. For instance, the mob wanted pieces of the Costello business, and they were pretty darn keen on getting it! They also believed that the company was a twisted conspiracy and that they were involved with the recent drug busts in the city.

How did Sam know this? She was the one out of the house often enough to be targeted. Because of this, she had decided to learn Russian, take more self-defence than her mother had required her to, and even learn some weapon training.

"Come out and we won't hurt you," the woman spoke again.

Sam slowly stood with her hands up in surrender. "Yeah, I'm sure I believe that as much as you!"

The chances of escape were slim, but possible. The woman was with two men, both carrying and probably skilled with guns. The woman was also holding a gun, pointing it at the young Costello girl as if she didn't believe the surrender. She had no reason to either. Sam knew this woman personally as the one who came to kidnap her whenever the mob had questions. About half the time she came, Sam played the false surrender card. It had only worked the first three of four times, but it still gave Sam the bit of extra time to plan escape. Sometimes her plans succeeded, but sometimes they didn't; the former was obviously much more pleasant. This time, if Sam could just reach her phone, _maybe_ the authorities would arrive fast enough!

As if she could read her mind, the Russian woman fired two more shots into the night air with deadly accuracy. A bullet ripped through Sam's right shoulder, embedding itself in the muscle. The second round, however, wasn't a bullet. The thin needle of a syringe plunged into Sam's neck.

The pain in her shoulder started to recede and Sam's balance faltered. She struggled to stay conscious, but it was beyond her control now. The lights dimmed and the young woman's body hit the gravel of the street with a thud.

_"__You have got to be kidding me,"_ Sam thought, before giving in to the sea of darkness that she had struggled against.

"Take the girl back," the woman spoke again, this time in Russian. She handed the two men a pair of zip-cuffs and walked up to the slumped figure of Sam, pulling a miniature syringe out of the Costello's neck. "Also, get more of these, they seem to be working," she laughed smugly.

The men lifted Sam by her arms and dragged her back to the suspicious looking white van that surprisingly nobody had noticed.

This would definitely be interesting.


End file.
